


Somewhere It Blooms

by LemonsandPie



Series: Fools Rush In [2]
Category: Dragon Age (Video Games), Dragon Age - All Media Types, Dragon Age: Origins
Genre: Flower Crowns, Fluff and Angst, Friendship, Gen, Language of Flowers, Multiple Wardens (Dragon Age), Short One Shot, mentions of death and torture (why is this not a tag?)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-14
Updated: 2019-03-14
Packaged: 2019-11-18 03:23:38
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,498
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18112259
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LemonsandPie/pseuds/LemonsandPie
Summary: Sometimes the monsters are really just men…In which, two very different people realize they are very much the same.





	Somewhere It Blooms

“Is communing with nature a cultural norm to Elvhen society, or is it just an individual quirk?”

She didn’t think she hid her surprise very well, what with all her gasping and crushing what little work she managed to do in her fright.

She should have known when a shadow cast over her person that it was him, but she thought it a cloud blocking out the sun, what with the lack of noise and all.

Should Qunari be so stealthy while also being enormous and threatening? 

The thought didn’t sit well with her, and she shifted ever so slightly so that he wasn’t directly at her unarmed back. Not that he’d probably do anything, he was a constant member of their little party after all, and he’d proven his valor enough times by saving her from what would surely be her death.

But he was a Qunari, a boogieman she’d thought was just conjured up by too much ale and bored Templar minds. She hadn’t thought such giants were actually real. Great hulking horned men with metallic hued skin and eyes that glittered like gems beneath thick brows. A people whose savagery knew no bounds on the battlefield. Cities fell, ages halted, and people all but vanished under the roughly hewn banner of the Qun, never to be seen again.

At least darkspawn and demons left evidence behind, no matter how horrible it was.

Qunari simply spirited people away.

_ Poof _ .

It was sinister, and she’d have been lying to herself if she didn’t fear him more than Archdemon. Well…maybe that was an exaggeration, but she still had nightmares of him as much as hurlocks and arcane horrors.

Him brutally murdering a helpless farming family did _ not _ help his case.

“You are doing that wrong. You have to weave the stems together in a pattern, not…tangle them. Otherwise, they break apart and all is for not.”

She blinked slowly because surely, she had heard him wrong. 

“I… _ what? _ ” She couldn’t think of anything else to really say, so when he just gave an annoyed huff— _ a huff! _ —she just handed over what was left of the lilies and other flowers she’d collected, and stared. 

If he was perturbed by her staring, he didn’t show it, just merely sat down and laid his near constant companion of a claymore down next to him. The blade hummed with a strange sound when it made contact with the floor in its scabbard home; and, if she’d been blind folded, she could have sworn to the Elvehn Parthenon and back that it’d been an instrument. Like a well-made glass bell, a tinkling sweet sound that had no business belonging to a weapon of death. 

Or, belonging to  _ him. _

He still hadn’t said anything, silent the whole time like herself, but his hands were another story.

They were just as odd as him, to be expected really, but also nothing like she’d expected.

Oghren’s hands told tales; thick scars across the backs of his meaty, hairy hands. Broken pinky fingers from drunken fights. A pale band across his left ring finger from a ring long buried with it’s twin beneath the mountains. Squared digits with teeth bitten nails. 

Alistair’s were less marked, but just as telling. Small, crisscrossing scars at the bend of his index fingers from nervous energy. Dry, cracked palms from gripping his shield’s bindings too tight. A small smattering freckles across the backs, fair like a well-bred noble man’s. Rosy tips to match his blushing ears and smiling dimples.

Sten’s hands told no tales.

The nails were rounded down and cut to a crisp shortness, efficient and mechanical in their make. His hands were not scarred per say, but calloused as befitting most warriors. They were flawlessly proportioned fingers surmounting an equally as perfected hand, and, save for the color, were just ordinary.

At least, motionless they were plain.

“What in Thedas are you  _ doing? _ ” He did a twist— _ or was it a loop? _ —and simultaneously braided a grouping of colored flowers in such a way it left her breathless. The arrangement reminded her of what she imagined Lady Eloethalyn’s crown to look like in  _ The Tale of Lost Time _ , and she could imagine the Elvhen princess’ dark raven hair gilded with fresh blossoms as she fought tooth and nail against the Dread Wolf to get her daughter back.

And in that instance, she was back to being a young girl begging her mother for another bedtime story before the last of the candles were snuffed out.

She crushed the memory as soon as it came, and tried to blink back tears that were rapidly beginning to fill her eyes.

“It is a…garland?” She jumped when he spoke, so taken into her own head that she’d forgotten he was here. Just as before, she’d realized she failed to hide her fear when she caught his attention shift to her for a moment before zeroing back to his task at hand. She both hated and appreciated his discretion. “I believe that is the closest approximation of our word for it in your Common tongue.”

Skittish, always so skittish.

Jowan was right to call her Mouse all those years ago in the tower when they first met.

She didn’t have the countenance to be in a war, let alone leading an army against a Blight.

But that didn’t really matter, did it? She was a Warden now, she had to do it.

And that meant she had to be brave.

“Oh,” she laced her hands together, tried to straighten her spine, and looked the man straight in the eye. “They are very lovely. How did you know how to do that?”

Sten went quiet again, she didn’t think she’d ever heard such hesitation from him (around her at the very least). Mutely, he added a couple of blossoms to the ring before tying it off in an elaborate knot with his teeth.

He looked… _ repentant. _

“There are things your people do not understand,” his voice was barely audible, and if she hadn’t been looking for an answer, the wind would have gobbled up the sound. “I do not mean elves exactly. Just…you people of the South. There are things you have not seen, and so you do not know.” He paused then, and looked at the finished ring in his hands. “My people are conquerors, we bring order to the orderless. But it is not without price, it is not without sacrifice.” 

He looked up at her then, and there was something strange in the look he was giving her. Equal parts puzzled, sad, and angry. 

The flower crown was left forgotten.

“You are a mage, are you not?” An accusation and a question, and, she guessed, a test.

“Yes,” she said, feeling like she was going to go through another Harrowing. The tension made her back ache. “You know that I am.”

“Then you know what you can do…” Again, she was confused at his meaning until she saw him staring at the dagger Jowan had given her right before Uldrige took over the Circle. She fought the need to throw the dagger away, like a mark against her character, but she also knew that its power is probably what spared Cullen against a pride demon’s wrath. 

Without this dagger, without that circle, without her magic …

“I have never  _ actually _ used it,” she didn’t care for the way her voice hitched when she was feeling defensive. It sounded too much like a surly child who’d gotten caught with their hand in the cookie jar for her liking, but she would be damned if he treated her like less because of what she  _ could  _ (never would) do. There were many things that she’d never take to heart, but her magic was her very self, her core.

“But you know,” his eyes never broke contact, not condemning per say, but defiantly judging. “What you can do?”

“Yes,” her voice was flat, hidden. “I know what I  _ can _ do.”

“Then you know a little…” He grabbed another collection of flowers and began weaving them together, slowing down so she could see the individual steps. “I have seen great men fall before your kind, Warden. I have also seen great men triumph. But perhaps,” his hands stopped their motions and stilled. “Perhaps, what is worse is seeing those that are inbetween…”

“Undead?” She did not think such horrific half people scared him, he always seemed so sure in battle. Stalwart.

“No,” his voice was firm as he twisted a lily with a pale purple flower she didn’t know the name of, but could remember the smell on a thousand potions. “The Qunari do not fear death…Those who I speak of are not dead, though they might as well be.” He placed the second finished ring next to the first, and began a third before she could even blink. This one was a smattering of sunshine buttercup and daisy. It was out of place with their conversations subject matter. “Their minds, Warden. Their minds…”

To incur madness on an individual was not a particularly hard hex to cast. The magic was found in the house of Entropy, chaotic magic at its disciplined best. All a mage had to do was focus their magic in such a way that narrowed it down to a harsh whisper. Like whittling down a pole end to a spear, the magic was woven around one negative emotion before it was lofted into another's mind. Then the hexed would only think of that emotion until the spell ran out of mana.

Sometimes days, but mostly hours.

Simple things like fear, disgust, love, sadness, or anger.

But lasting madness, madness born on unending pain and blood magic, lasted longer. Like a stain that could never be properly scrubbed clean. Emotions turned dark with the whisperings of demons fueling their binding. Love turned into obsession, fear turned to horror, sadness to depression, anger to boiling rage. The mind would splinter under such a heavy strain, and often times such spells could not be undone, even if the original caster was laid to waste.

Yes, she understood Sten at that moment perfectly.

“I did not know,” because that was truth, and she wouldn’t begrudge him that when he’d been so transparent with her. “The mages of the Black Spire?”

“Sehenron,” he placed the third ring down, spaced out evenly with the other two in a neat, orderly line. “There is a reason why we do not make our people do more than two years on the front lines there. Tevinter does not allow it.”

“I’m sorry,” she couldn’t sympathize per say, but she did feel an icy coldness in her veins when she thought of magic being used for  _ that _ (and then a white-hot hate when she thought of Jowan— _ bloody Jowan _ —). 

He sorted out a couple of blossoms in a pile between the two of them. 

Cream colored tulips and sky-blue Hyacinths.

“Did you damage my superior officer and kill most of my  _ kith _ ?”

“No…?” He pushed the blossoms into her bewildered hands, but made no other motions than that.

“Then there is nothing to be sorry for, Warden.” He picked up a tulip and a Hyacinth by their stems and made a couple of dramatic loops that tied them together without damaging the flower themselves. He picked up another tulip to tie on the Hyacinth’s side. “Follow me. Look very closely. Over, then under, then over again. Finally pull.”

He made the motions again, and she followed suite, lost in thought over how bizarre this whole day had turned out. 

When she was halfway done with a decent crown, she thought it safe to talk again, “So, how did you learn how to do this? This doesn’t seem to be a common activity they’d teach in the Qun.”

“Oh,” he said, not faltering in his handiwork. “You know many Qunari, Warden?”

“…Point taken...”

He sighed, and looked up at the sky, “You remind me of the boy-king and how he speaks without thinking..." 

She prided herself on only bristling a little at this claim, slapping at her thighs lightly to distract herself from the verbal lashings she'd normally give. 

"However, you are correct in that not many people of the Qun know of this sort of activity unless they have reason to visit Sehenron. We teach those… _afflicted_ by Tevinter mages how to weave the flora there. Little tasks they can do." He nodded to the line of crowns, hands still weaving. "This one helps with dexterity, visual elasticity…memory. My first commander was a very large man, great with a maul, even better with a spear. He slew at least seven scores of Tevinters before he had turned his twentieth year. He was just shy of forty when I was assigned to his kith.”

Sten sighed again, long and weary, before looking back down at his hands. “He was very good at creating garlands, my captain. He could make rings large enough to encircle our rice paddies. It is perhaps the only thing he is capable of doing now. This gives him purpose, to create beauty to inspire the weary. He may not know it, but it does give our people strength where it might wane.” 

Pulling the knot with his teeth, he tossed her the finished crown when he rose to his feet. 

“You may have this one…”

She scrambled to her feet and almost tripped over her gown in the process, hands gentle to not crush the blooms.  


“You’re headed back out?”

He shrugged his massive shoulders and slung his great sword on his back: “I must make my rounds before the Duster returns from her mission with the swamp witch and the sloppy elf.”

“I thought…” She shook her head, placing his garland on her head. “They’re called  _ Aodhelyrian _ in Elvhen. We wear— _ wore  _ them as crowns when we were still…” She coughed away some of the bitterness from her throat at the thought of where her people were now. “ _ Anyway _ , mostly they’re used as symbols of remembrance…and forgiveness…” She rubbed the back of her neck as she thought what to say next, uncomfortable with even that bit of unnecessary truth. Again, she was thankful that he didn’t pry or ask her to explain more. 

Cautiously, she pressed her finished crown into his hand, not nearly as beautifully woven as his, but still something that she had made. 

Another thing she could be proud of.

“You’re not…you’re not what I thought you were, y’know?”

_ You’re not a monster. _

It seemed like a paltry thing to say, but she hoped he got all that in entailed.

And, just when she was starting to feel like a fool for even saying anything, the silence too long and uncomfortable _and—_

He smiled.  


“Neither are you,” and with that, Sten turned on his heel and trekked back to camp. 

Her flower crown firmly on his head.

**Author's Note:**

> Oh, wow, hey. Thanks for giving this fic a read. I know this isn't much, and a frienship fic on top of that (no spicy romance here), but I figured someone might like a gen fic (I do so love found family/friendship stories). Anyway, as I said before, this series is kind of a world my friends and I created because we are massive nerds and like adding each others OCs into our stories. So, this is a friend of mines Warden, who you'll be seeing more of in the future.
> 
> (*cough* multi-chapter fics soon *cough*)
> 
> Bonus points to people who can figure out the meaning of the flower crowns!


End file.
